Cars will need fewer screens and more buttons to earn a 5-star safety rating in Europe | Euro NCAP will introduce new testing rules in 2026 requiring physical controls for the highest safety score
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"Don't stare at your phone but instead stare at this screen that controls your car."
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While we're at it get rid of retina frying headlights. Sure, you can see great but I'm blind as I drive into you at night. At least make it so they don't look like point sources and can't aim upwards.
Also make the auto headlight setting the default if the car is in drive. Too many people driving in the twilight with no headlights on.
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I borrowed a Mazda 3 with the joystick dial a few times. It's absolutely brilliant.
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That’s insane.
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I've only been in a Tesla with an Uber driver, so not paid attention to it... but no indicator or wiper control?
Jeez.
I've had a couple of cars with automatic wipers and they're not that great... Having no controls would do my head in
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Huh. I think it looks kind of cool? Is it that hard to see?
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Not just them, but a lot of the car platforms coming out of China right now, including Volvo cars. I have an EX40, which has a lot of physical buttons, and a physical lever for the glove compartment (🤯), but when I tried the EX30 I was blown away by the poor driving experience. So crappy. Everything is done via the screen, and it sucks. Not even a speed indicator in front of the driver, but you have to glance over to the center screen.
Also the one-pedal drive was really bad on the EX30, but that's another story. I also hated the gear lever behind the wheel instead of a stick between the driver and passenger seat.
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Is it possible that you're just following too close if you feel these new turn signals aren't fast enough for you to react?
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I genuinely don't see the problem with those. Amber lights on the left side of the car light up, that can only mean one thing. There is no ambiguity there whether they're playing snake or just flashing. I have never, on no occasion, found myself confused by those.
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Maybe the evolution. My grandmother told stories of her dad scaring her mom with his “crazy” driving, speeding up to 40, sometimes even 45 mph.
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That's not true, though. At least in 2022 models the indicator is in the standard place, and wipers are controllable via a button and scroller.
The latest models seem to have gone crazier on this though. Along with its owner I guess.
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Before anyone forgets, this all started with Tesla. They lacked the skill, talent, know how, money and manufacturing capacity to make a decent center console. They then decided to move everything to the touchscreen because software is cheap to add to cars, thousands of small precision engineered objects are not. It was a margins game by the man "with the most knowledge on manufacturing in the world". The rest of the industry followed because the bougie idiots made the band popular so the competitors just copied that absolutely regarded idea.
Everyone calling this regarded was screamed into oblivion by tesla fanboys and design savants: "You're just too dumb to understand minimalist design".
And here we are, turns out designing something that makes the driver take their eyes off the road on a 2000Kg murder machine is actually NOT good design. -
What i suspect happens is, a good design gets made. It is then "improved" by the M.B.A. having class.
Then marketing gets their say, useless shit and third party add-ons sloppily slapped on top.
Enter another round of "economizing" and a perfectly good design becomes enshittified.
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I find them distracting. There are useful innovations, and there are pointless gimmicks.
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Is it possible that you have not been driving for the last 35 years seeing a solid block of flashing light, so your brain is not yet hardwired to recognise that and only that?
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It's distracting.
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People do that on purpose, there’s a huge aftermarket for 10x brighter headlights.
